Payload:

Mission Objectives:

The Wake Shield Facility (WSF), a primary payload for mission STS-60,
arrived at Cape Canaveral on 6/30/93 to begin final prelaunch assembly
and checkout.

The parabolic-shaped WSF is 12 feet in diameter and includes
a communications and avionics system, solar cells and batteries,
and a propulsion thruster. The experiment will take advantage of
the near vacuum of space to attempt to grow innovative thin film
materials for use in electronics. It will be deployed by the
remote manipulator arm, and fly in formation with Discovery at a
distance of up to 46 statute miles from the orbiter for 56 hours.
It will then be retrieved from space, again using the remote
manipulator arm. WSF costs approximately $13 million to develop
and was designed and built by the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center
(SVEC) based at the University of Houston.

WSF underwent initial processing in NASA's Hangar S on
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. In mid-September it was moved
to the Vertical Processing Facility in the KSC Industrial Area where
tests were performed to verify its compatibility with the Space
Shuttle. The payload was then transferred to the pad approximately
one month later.

The final collection of experiments are the COB/GBA payloads. They are
mounted in the rear of the payload bay on a GAS bridge assembly. Four
additional Get-Away Special (GAS) canisters are also mounted on the
GBA. Experiments on the COB/GBA include the Capillary Pumped Loop
Experiment (CAPL), Orbital Debris Radar Calibration Spheres Project
(ODERACS) and the University of Bremen Satellite (BREMSAT).

Launch:

Launch February 3, 1994 7:10:05am EST. Discovery launched exactly on
time at the beginning of it's 2 hour, 30 minute window. Discovery's
initial trip to the launch pad was delayed a few days due to additional
inspections and tests on all of Discovery's 44 nose and tail steering
jets. A microscopic puncture was found by its manufacturer, Marquardt
Co (a division of CCI Corp of Van Nuys Calif), during post-flight
inpection. This thruster experienced experienced unexpected drops in
chamber pressure during Discovery'sSTS-51 mission in September.

A hairline scratch was discovered on Discovery's number 6 pilot side cabin
window on the outermost pane. This cabin window was removed and replace on
the launch pad. The Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT) for STS-60
was conducted from 1/13/94 and completed with a simulated ignition of
Discovery's main engines at 11 am Friday 1/14/94. The three day launch
countdown for Thursday's launch was started at 4am on 1/31/94.
Loading of the half-million gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen
into the 15 story external tank began at 10:50pm EST on Wednesday 2/2/94.
Astronauts were awakened at 2:15am and left for the launch pad at 3:55am
Thursday morning. Temperature at liftoff was 46 degrees which was within
the launch commit criteria constraint of greater than 36 degrees. This
constraint protects the orbiter from the possibility of ice formation on
various locations of the External Tank that could possibly break off and
cause damage during ignition. Lower temperature also affects SRB O-ring
seals but are not as critical as before the post 51-LSolid Rocket Motor Redesign effort. Heaters are now placed around
the SRB O-ring seals to insure the seals do not stiffen and fail in cold
weather.

The launch countdown proceeded smoothly. The only concerns were some
GSE transduser failures (that have multiple redundancy) and a minor leak
(within specifications) on the Hydrogen umbilical. The ice inspection
team did not find any evidence of ice buildup in any critical areas. High
winds and low humidity in the launch area were contributing factors to the
lack of ice buildup.

Orbit:

Altitude: 191 nm

Inclination: 57 degrees

Orbits: 130

Duration: 8 days, 7 hours, 9 minutes, 22 seconds.

Distance: 3,439,704 miles

Hardware:

Landing:

KSC on Flight day 9 (2/11/94) at 2:18:41 EST on KSC Runway 15.
There were 2 landing options for KSC and one for Edwards. The 1st
landing option on 2/11/94 was on orbit 129 with a deorbit burn at
MET 8 days 4 hours 28 min or 11:38 EST. This would have resulted in
a landing at KSC's runway 33 at 12:34 EST and a mission elapsed time
of 8 days, 5 hours and 34 min. The first KSC landing option was waived
off due to high winds near the Shuttle Landing Facility. The 2nd
opportunity was on orbit 130 and KSC weather conditions proved favorable.
Discovery performed a deorbit burn at MET 8 days 5 hours and 59 min or
1:11pm EST. Discovery crossed USA airspace over Alaska and proceeded
to travel in a South Easterly direction over Canada, thru the midwest,
and on over Georgia. The orbiter then performed a left-overhead turn of
349 degrees and landed from the North traveling south on KSC runway 15
at MET 8 days 7 hours 8 min at 2:18pm EST.

Mission Highlights:

After External Tank seperation and main engine cutoff, a 2.5 min
OMS burn was initiated at 7:52am EST that circularized Discovery's orbit
from a 40nm by 190nm orbit to 190nm by 190nm. Shortly after liftoff,
pilot Kenneth S. Reightler Jr. experienced problems with his portable
headset. The problem was traced to the Headset Interface Unit (HIU) and
that unit was swapped out with a flight spare. The payload bay doors were
opened and around 8:45am EST the crew was given a go for on-orbit operations.

Shortly after reaching orbit, the STS-60 crew began checking Discovery's
systems and activating the commercially developed SPACEHAB laboratory
module and several of its experiments. The crew also activated one group
of the payload bay Getaway Special experiments.

SPACEHAB module experiments that were activated included the Organic
Separations payload, which is designed to investigate cell separation
techniques for possible pharmaceutical and biotechnology processing, and
the Equipment for Controlled Liquid Phase Sintering Experiment package, a
furnace designed to explore the possibilities of creating stronger,
lighter and more durable metals for use in bearings, cutting tools
and electronics.

SPACEHAB middeck experiments that were activated included Immune-1, which
will look at the immune systems of rats in orbit, and the Commercial
Protein Crystal Growth package, which is attempting to grow large, well-
ordered protein crystals so that their structures can be more easily
studied. The crew sleep period then began at 6:10pm EST.

At 6:30am EST on 2/5/94 Discovery inadvertently flew thru a cloud of
wastewater ice crystals. Flight controllers determined the approximately
one tablespoon of wastewater leaked out of a wast dump nozzle.

The Wake Shield deployment operation was canceled on Saturday. This delay
was the result of several factors, including radio interference
and an inability to read the Wake Shield's status lights when the
orbiter's payload bay is in full sunlight. Deployment originally was
scheduled for 10 a.m. CST, but after grappling the free-flyer and lifting
it out of the cargo bay and into the pre-deploy position, crew members
and investigators on the ground were unable to tell whether power and
transmitter status lights were giving the proper indications. After
determining that the problem was not a systems failure, but difficulty in
reading the status lights, the crew and flight controllers perpared for
another release attempt. Interference between the radio transmitter on
the Wake Shield Facility and the receiver on its payload bay carrier
resulted in the one-day wave-off.

Wake Shield deployment was also canceled on Sunday, 2/6/94 during it's
orbit 53 opportunity at 12:25pm. WSF and flight controllers worked
problems with the Pitch and Roll sensors on WSF's Attitude, Direction
and Control system. Astronaut N. Jan Davis moved the wrist joint on the
Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm to try to point WSF's Horizon Sensor
into the sun in an attempt to warm up the sensors electronics package.
The last deploy opportunity for Sunday was a 50 minute window beginning at
2:23 EST on orbit 54 and WSF was not ready for deployment. It was left
mounted on the RMS during the crew sleep period while ground controllers
consider their options. On it's pearch at the end of the RMS over night,
WSF was able to grow 2 Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) thin films. The next deploy
opportunity on 2/7/94 would have been orbit 67 but payload controllers
and flight controllers determined that there would be insufficient time to
safely develop contigency procedures in the event that WSF was unable to
maintain stable attitude control without the use of its Horizon Sensor. It
was decided that for the remainder of the mission, all WSF operations would
take place at the end of the RMS and there will be no WSF free-flying
operations on this mission.

At 7:38am EST on 2/8/94, Good Morning America performed a live
bi-directional audio and downlink video hookup between astronauts onboard
Discovery and 3 Cosmonauts onboard the Soviet Mir Space Station. Discovery
was over the Pacific ocean and Mir was over the southern United States.
Afterwords, work progressed with SPACEHAB module and middeck experiments
while Wake Shield continued operations at the end of the Remote Manipulator
System. A slight problem developed with the status indicators on the 3-DMA
experiment and the crew downlinked video to aid in troubleshooting. The
astronauts ended Flight Day 6 at 7:10pm EST.

Flight Day 7 (2/9/94) began at 3:20am EST. ODERACS operations are
scheduled for 9:55am EST during Orbit 97 and BREMSAT deploy is scheduled
for 2:50pm EST but the deploy may be moved earlier in the orbit to provide
better lighting conditions. WSF closeout was begun and a telemetry problem
with the facility prevented the growth of the 6th and final thin film
onboard WSF. Five other thin films were grown through out the mission
before Wake Shield was berthed. WSF closeout was completed by 8:10am EST.

At 7:58am EST, Commander Charles F. Bolden reported to the ground that one
of the Thermal Protection System (TPS) blankets around Discovery's forward
RCS thruster below Commander Bolden's cabin window was slightly pealed back.
N. Jan Davis was directed to halt her power down and stowage of the
Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm and use the arm to perform a camera
survey of the front left side of the orbiter. At 2:20pm EST, the BREMSAT
momemtum wheel was spun up and BREMSAT was ejected into space at 2:23pm EST
at the rate of 3.4 ft/sec.

On Flight Day 8 (2/10/94), the astronauts preformed a number of
operations to prepare Discovery for it's trip home. These included Hot-Fire
tests of all 44 Reaction Control Systems jets, Flight control system checkout,
SAREX stow, CPCG Stow, ASC-3 Deactivation, ORSEP Deactivation, stowage of
all non-essential cabin items and Ku-Band antenna stow.